With New Orleans working its way back to normal, it brings to mind the city's colorful cinematic legacy. Think Pretty Baby, Johnny Handsome, parts of Angel Heart and JFK plus both versions of The Buccaneer. Naturally, New Orleans also is on the list. Mike Clark names a few more favorites.

When Tennessee Williams unleashed Blanche DuBois nearly six decades ago, he surely had no idea how large her vain, neurotic ghost would loom over contemporary pop culture. Nowadays, women older than 30 who maintain their sexual allure are the focus of everything from glossy magazines to hit TV shows.

The Mambo Kings has found its Nestor Castillo Mexican superstar Jaime Camil. The Broadway-bound musical concerns the two Castillo brothers, Nestor and Cesar, who leave Havana in the 1950s for the heady world of New York nightclubs. Esai Morales already has been signed to play Cesar.

He was a wild one, a godfather and a coulda-been contender. He was Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire and Colonel Kurtz in Apocalypse Now. He was Marlon Brando, the 80-year old Oscar-winning actor who became almost as famous for his bizarre behavior and gluttonous appetites as for the groundbreaking acting that made him an international icon. He died Thursday.